The present invention relates to azlactone activated polyalkylene oxides (PAO's) having improved hydrolytic stability, and to water-soluble polyalkylene oxide conjugates prepared therefrom.
The conjugation of water-soluble polyalkylene oxides with useful molecules such as proteins and polypeptides is well known. The coupling of peptides and polypeptides to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and similar water-soluble polyalkylene oxides is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,179,337 to Davis et al.
Davis et al. discloses that physiologically active polypeptides modified with PEG exhibit dramatically reduced immunogenicity and antigenicity. Also, the polyalkylene oxide conjugates, when injected into a living organism, have been shown to remain in the bloodstream considerably longer than the corresponding native proteins. Examples of such therapeutic protein conjugates include tissue plasminogen activator, insulin, interleukin II and hemoglobin. In addition, PAO's have also been conjugated to oligonucleotides. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,582.
To conjugate polyalkylene oxides, the hydroxyl end-groups of the polymer must first be converted into reactive functional groups. This process is frequently referred to as "activation" and the product is called an "activated polyalkylene oxide."
Until recently, covalent attachment of the polyalkylene oxide to an appropriate nucleophile was effected by activated polyalkylene oxides such as polyalkylene oxide succinoyl-N-hydroxysuccinimide ester, as disclosed by Abuchowski et al., Cancer Biochem. Biophys., 7, 175-86 (1984). This polyalkylene oxide derivative is desirable because it is reactive under mild conditions.
A shortcoming associated with this derivative, however, is the fact that it is relatively hydrolytically unstable when no nucleophile is present. Recently, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,614, polyalkylene oxide-N-succinimide carbonates were disclosed having improved hydrolytic stability over the polyalkylene oxide succinoyl succinates. Even so, the pH conditions necessary to deprotonate the .epsilon.-NH.sub.2 groups of polypeptide lysines for conjugation subject the activated polyalkylene oxide to hydrolysis. This does not affect the reaction end product, other than to reduce its yield. While reduced yields ordinarily affect product cost, the hydrolysis becomes even more costly for several reasons. Firstly, reaction mixtures cannot be prepared significantly in advance. Additional purification of the end product is required to remove the hydrolytic degradation products. Furthermore, the reduction in yield is compensated for by increasing the amount of activated polyalkylene oxide starting material. This increases the viscosity of the reaction mixture, thereby further increasing the processing cost, and potentially interferes with downstream purification of the polymer and conjugate.
A need exists, therefore, for polyalkylene oxides that are unreactive towards weak nucleophiles such as water but react readily with stronger nucleophiles such as polypeptides. While azlactones have been reported to react readily with amines and less readily with water, azlactone activated PAO's are unreported. Unsaturated azlactones, in particular, are not altered by long contact with water. See, Carter, Organic Reactions, Vol. III (Adams, ed., John Wiley & Sons, New York 1946) pp. 198-239. The disclosed unsaturated azlactones have the following structures: ##STR1## in which R.sub.1 and R.sub.2 are independently selected from hydrogen, phenyl rings and lower alkyl moieties. R is the residue of an .alpha.-acyl amino acid.